NVIDIA nTeresting Newsletter - March 19, 2012

In this Issue

· Kepler is here for notebooks, and it creates an Ultrabook that is truly worthy of the ‘ultra' moniker.

· 3D Vision continues to tower above the rest!

· GTC Open Registration - it's on like Donkey Kong!

GeForce GT 640M Puts the ‘Ultra' in UltrabooksTM

Didn't think UltrabooksTM could have GPUs? Sure they can.

"Acer's Aspire Timeline Ultra M3-581TG is more than just a mouthful: it's an ultrabook, too. Oh, and it's not just any ultrabook: it's the first ultrathin, long-lasting laptop with dedicated GeForce graphics. While we're at it, we should probably mention that it's not just any dedicated graphics chip either, but rather NVIDIA's first long-awaited Kepler GPU... and according to NVIDIA, it can play Battlefield 3 on ultra settings at the laptop's native 1366 x 768 resolution."

GeForce GPUs put the ‘ultra' in UltrabooksTM.
"The Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 is the most impressive ultrabook we've reviewed to date."

"The Acer Aspire Timeline U M3 is genuinely a great step forward for mobile computing. Not only is it slim and portable, it has enough power to smash through general computing tasks. The new NVIDIA graphics card will let you chew through even the latest games."

With a GeForce GPU your UltrabookTM is not just an email terminal.

"It looks like NVIDIA has delivered on its promise. These games all ran at over 30 FPS - and both Skyrim and Deus Ex ran at over 40 FPS. This may be a mid-range part, but it is fully capable of running today's most demanding titles.

With GeForce in the mix an UltrabookTM is simply a thin notebook.

"Not only is the NVIDIA GeForce GT 640M a quantum leap in terms of graphics performance for thin and light laptops, this discrete GPU even outperforms the graphics found in thick and heavy gaming laptops last year. If you are in the market for an ultrabook with a large screen, excellent video editing and gaming performance, and a premium fit and finish then the Acer Aspire Timeline Ultra M3 deserves serious consideration."

The innovation behind 2012's "ultrabook" platform is that you make fewer compromises in performance in order to achieve ultra-thin and ultra-light form factors thanks to more efficient and more powerful GPUs and processors.

"The performance gain between this generation and the last is substantial. Overall, the GT 640 appears to offer performance on par with the old GT 555M. This should have the effect of lowering the money you have to spend to buy a laptop with acceptable 3D performance."

Manufactured in 28 nanometer process and based on the new NVIDIA Kepler architecture, the GeForce GT 640M GPU is perfect for performance level thin and light notebooks, and even brings stunning graphics performance to Ultrabooks!

"This makes the very first graphics chip based on the Kepler architecture a mobile one, and an impressive one to boot."

And they come with Optimus!

"We also continue to see Optimus performing as well as it should. Jarred is big on eventually having GPUs idle so low that we simply don't need this kind of graphics-switching technology, but until that day comes, Optimus remains a stellar value add for end users. This is one place where AMD is lagging woefully behind and needs to get their act together, because right now the 640M is going to be preferable to pretty much any other mainstream mobile GPU in terms of both performance and power consumption."

In the coming months, GeForce will be powering some of the sleekest and thinnest Ultrabooks on the market.

"We suspect that NVIDIA's new Kepler based mobile GPUs will dominate the market. "

GeForce GT 640M GPUs support the NVIDIA features that set our GPUs apart from the competition, including: Great performance, NVIDIA Optimus technology, NVIDIA PhysX, and NVIDIA Verde drivers to keep your notebook optimized for tomorrow.

"For anyone who is interested in 3D games, I can only recommend NVIDIA 3D Vision 2, because it is a real improvement compared with the first generation and far better than solutions from third parties such as Tri-Def or AMD HD3D which currently only supports two games. 3D is NVIDIA's terrain! The Samsung S27A950D has actually a good 3D technology, but still, for 3D gaming we only can recommend NVIDIA 3D Vision."

It will change gaming for you, forever.

"3D Vision 2 also represents a real added value that can enrich the gaming experience for video gamers: to take advantage of stereoscopy, even occasionally, is an experience that changes the gaming perspective a lot."

NVIDIA 3D Vision technology supports the richest array of 3D content available, including more than 550 3D games, Blu-ray 3D movies, 3D photos and streaming Web video. It also enables users to users to upload, share and view full-resolution 3D photos, as well as enjoy 3D movies and videos at NVIDIA's 3DVisionLive.com, as well as to view thousands of 3D videos on YouTube.

GTC 2012 Now Open for Registration

Following a whirlwind tour of Japan, Singapore, Taiwan and China, the GPU Technology Conference (GTC) returns home to San Jose, Calif., for its flagship event on May 14-17, and registration is now open. The event will feature some of the most advanced scientific research being pursued on the planet - all done with the help of GPUs.

CUDA developers will continue to have their needs championed by the event, with the highly technical and practical programming curriculum that has come to define GTC.

Domain scientists will benefit from learning how to get faster research results. They'll want to check out the workshops and sessions devoted to OpenACC directives programming - the fastest, easiest way to leverage GPU computing with their existing scientific code. They'll also get a chance to learn what their peers are doing with GPUs in areas such as bioinformatics, climate and weather modeling, computational physics, energy exploration, medical imaging & visualization, and more than two dozen other fields.

Register before March 20 and get maximum savings with the early bird discount.